


Those Who Carry Burdens

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Series: NaNo Meets Whumptober [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Automail, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Bad Things Happen Bingo Prompt: Chronic Pain, Body Swap, Chronic Pain, Edward Elric's Massive Guilt Complex, Gen, Whumptober Prompt: Tear-stained, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 18:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21450757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: AU post episode nine. In which Ed and Al don't go to Dublith post their fun in the Fifth Laboratory, but instead get a lead on an alchemist who is reported to specialise in soul transmutation.As usual, things end up going contrary to plan. What comes instead of an easy victory is an uncomfortable time of reflection on the burdens the Elric brothers think they have to carry alone.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Riza Hawkeye, Alphonse Elric & Roy Mustang, Edward Elric & Riza Hawkeye, Edward Elric & Roy Mustang
Series: NaNo Meets Whumptober [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533689
Comments: 37
Kudos: 326





	Those Who Carry Burdens

**Author's Note:**

> This is a full day and a bit late, but it's due to technical difficulties, so I'm going to just side-eye my own rules and let this one slip in there and count toward this challenge, anyway. 
> 
> As usual, the plot is a begrudging necessity to my desire to unpick characters' brains. This one was actually born from a conversation in which a friend and I jokingly challenged each other to turn usually fluffy or humorous tropes angsty. I mentioned the body swap trope, then thought of these two, and realised how right I actually was. I'm almost sure this has been done before in many ways, so I sheepishly offer up my macaroni art to add to the collection.

The journey toward becoming Führer required Roy to become a certain type of person with certain traits. On the top of said list of traits was meticulous excellence; the ability to manipulate things around him to his advantage without making many mistakes, if any at all. Meticulous precision like this had been seeded in his apprenticeship, sprouted and bloomed during the war, and groomed in the years since, and he was confident in his perfectionism in most areas. 

Edward Elric was not one of those areas. 

It was increasingly obvious to Roy, as he and his team crashed through the locked front door to the old farmhouse and then sprinted toward the basement, that letting Ed continue the investigation on Kalk had been a bad idea. Roy reached the basement stairs and ripped it open with the gloved hand not poised ready to click, and the unmistakable odour of blood wafted up and kicked him in the gut and chest. But his mistakes with the Elrics stretched back further than caving to the desperation hidden so thinly behind the anger in Edward’s rant about how he  _deserved _ to be the one to go after Kalk. Perhaps Roy’s very first mistake was daring a twelve-year-old boy with fire in his eyes to join the military in the first place.

The smell of blood increased as they thundered down the stairs, and Roy’s heart was in his throat in a way it hadn’t been in a long while. Every other confrontation and battle had been simply a roulette with death, and Roy and death had become close enough acquainted long enough ago that he no longer thought more than twice about finally meeting his end. This time, however, there was a promise that he was going to find something he didn’t like; that the smell cloying in his nose (how curiously different it was when coming from a musty basement and not from hot desert sand) was a promise that he didn’t want to have fulfilled. 

_Let us get the Aether Alchemist_, Ed had begged-demanded. _He worked with Marcoh on similar research. He might have an alternative to the Stone_. And it had seemed like a good enough idea – let the Elrics chase their first ray of hope since finding out what the Stone really was, while apprehending an ex-State Alchemist that wasn’t supposed to be performing alchemy at _all_ , let alone the things the scared rumours were whispering he was doing. 

Roy understood  _Edward _ not thinking about it being a trap; a lure to get the boys tied up in Marcoh and the Philosopher’s Stone right into his hands. But Roy should have  _seen_ . He shouldn’t have let them go alone. He shouldn’t have let them go at all. And his penance for his mistake was upon him as his feet hit the basement floor and he flung himself into the crowed space, arm raised, Hawkeye, Havoc and Breda close at his back. 

Mustang took in the room in precise, quick bursts of sight. Chalk array on the floor. Elric brothers in the middle, tied up. Room in a tornado-hit disarray. Locked cages lining the walls dripping a dark liquid. Dirt on Edward’s face and clothes but no blood. Breathing. Edward was breathing. And moving. And alive. The armour was also in one piece. The blood was in the cages, not on the boys. Kalk was nowhere to be seen amongst the carnage. 

“Fullmetal, report,” Mustang snapped at him, as his team split up to all do their assigned duty in the room. 

“Kalk disappeared somewhere after he activated the array,” Ed’s voice said at once, it’s usual quick rap but also... wrong. More distant. Tinny. Like on the end of a bad phonecall. “The transmutation ended about five minutes ago; he has a head start on you guys.” 

Havoc, who had been on his way to untie the brothers, stopped dead in his tracks. In any other circumstance, the expression on his face that Mustang caught when he turned to investigate the sudden halting of footsteps would have been laughable – his mouth was open so wide that the cigarette Roy had told him to toss earlier was hanging on by a hair right on the tip of his lip. 

“Chief,” Havoc said, voice bewildered. “You’re...” 

“What?” Fullmetal’s voice snapped, still in that disconcertingly hollow way and... And Edward Elric’s mouth _didn’t move_. 

“You’re... in... oh,” Havoc continued, a little dumbfounded. 

“Kalk really was researching soul transmutation.” It took Roy nearly five full seconds to place the voice, because Alphonse Elric sounded so _different _when he was speaking through a human body. “He managed to get it right; swapping souls from one vessel to another,” Al said, and Edward’s mouth moved and Edward’s eyes turned to look at Roy, but there was an expression on that face that didn’t belong to Fullmetal at all. 

“Could you freaking untie us, already?” Edward snapped from inside the armour. “Or are you just gonna stand there and stare like an idiot?” 

Havoc jerked forward, Mustang lowered his arm in the midst of a slew of emotions, and Hawkeye made her way briskly back to his side. “Sir, there’s no sign of Kalk, or of an alternative exit. There is no sign of life in any of the cages, either.” 

“Do you see his clothes lying around on the floor somewhere?” Ed’s new voice asked. There was a crash and a clang as he got to his feet and then wobbled a bit. “Clothes aren’t part of the toll,” he explained, casually. 

Hawkeye blanched a little, and murmured that she’d go and look. Roy nodded too late at her retreating back. “Everybody else, gather up everything that looks like it could be Kalk’s research notes. Breda, copy down that array in case. Fullmetal...” 

Roy looked at suit of armour clanking clunkily toward Ed’s body, which was still seated on the floor, staring in wonder at flesh fingers moving through the air. Roy didn’t know what to demand of Fullmetal, right then, and left the brothers to their own devices, satisfied that they’d make sure the other was physically okay. This was going to be a headache and a half, even if the transmutation hadn’t done any real damage – Roy knew that, and knew that the possibilities for things to go wrong were still high. But all he felt, as he started to gather Kalk’s research, was relief that he hadn’t come to find that his mistake had cost lives, again. 

***

The crash was loud enough that it seemed to vibrate through the walls, but it still wasn’t loud enough to mask the sound of things falling and breaking in the impact’s wake. 

“Damnit, Fullmetal!” Roy roared. “Could you take into consideration that you’re no longer under five feet and skinny –” 

“Who are you calling so puny he’d drown in a droplet of saliva?” Ed roared back at Roy, and the usual rage coming from a seven-foot, red-eyed, looming suit of armour was _actually _intimidating. So much so that Roy forgot, for a moment, to remind Ed he was hearing things, again. “Next thing I break will be your _face_, you bastard. And I’ll have to _lean down _to do it.”

He turned to leave the room again, this time  _deliberately _ crashing into the doorway just to annoy Roy, who could feel a pulsing pain begin somewhere behind his left eye. He was working up the rage to continue telling Fullmetal to be more careful, when there was another clattering crash from the kitchen. Roy started, turning in its direction, and then was nearly flattened as Edward came charging around the corner again, heading toward the kitchen with the trampling disregard of a bull. Roy followed him, nearly as alarmed by the sound as Fullmetal was – Al was, unlike his brother,  _trying _ not to be destructive as he got used to his new body. But it had only been a day, and his adaptations included senses and sensations he’d been missing for years, and he was, therefore, more of a concern than his newly-hulking big brother was. 

Fullmetal barrelled into the kitchen, heedless of the way that he misjudged his breadth and therefore chipped the wall and dented the armour slightly as he crashed his way in. And it hit Roy just as forcefully as Ed had hit the wall that, while he’d never had to consider that Ed being held in check by the ability to feel pain was a good thing until this moment, it was becoming abundantly clear that it was going to be another mountain to climb in this situation. Mostly for the sake of property and people in Fullmetal’s surrounds, but also because Roy had already seen for himself that the armour was not completely invincible. 

“Sorry,” Al said, contritely apologetic as Roy joined Ed in the kitchen. He appeared unharmed, and Roy relaxed. “I misjudged the distance.”

Ed grumbled out a token exasperation, but batted his brother away from the sharp shards of pottery so he could pick them up with leather hands. Al watched for a moment, then grabbed what must have been his third slice of the pie Breda had bought in town earlier, tucking into it with relish. That expression of pure joy mixed with wonder mixed with heartbroken delight that he’d been wearing so often crossed his face once more, albeit muted, as he took another bite of the pie. And  _that _ was what was the strangest about this whole situation – seeing expressions and openness and softness coming from  _Fullmetal’s face _ that Roy had never expected to see there. It was still downright  _creepy _ every time Edward Elric’s body did or said something warm and gentle, and part of Roy wanted to ask Al to be slightly less  _Al _ until they were back in Central and Roy no longer had to watch Edward’s eyes widen in innocent warmth. If he were honest with himself, the desire to get away was also because it  _hurt_ , in a new and surprising way, every time Alphonse rediscovered something else he’d been living without for years; a bittersweet kick that left Roy floundering and uncomfortable and a little tight-chested in ways he didn’t want to admit he could feel. 

As Edward disposed of the crockery, he caught sight of his brother relishing in the pie and stood very, very still, as though soaking in the sight. Roy was selfishly glad the face of the armour remained blank, because if  _he _ was having trouble not feeling all soft and also achy watching Alphonse experience the world again, he  _really _ did not want to have to experience a glimpse of what was happening inside Edward’s heart. 

“You know, Brother,” Al said, and the impish glint in his eyes was so close to Ed’s that the uncomfortable awkwardness began to bleed out of Roy. “This would taste even better with a glass of milk.” 

“Don’t you _dare_,” Ed raged at once, pointing an accusing finger at his little brother. “You don’t _dare _fling that _shit _down my throat just because you’re in my body!” 

“Maybe I can get you to be taller by the time we switch back,” Al smirked. 

Roy quickly escaped the kitchen while Ed exploded in that gentle, half-serious way he had when fighting with Al. 

***

Once again, Roy missed the subtle signs that were, in hindsight, laid out so neatly before him to catalogue. He only realised what he should have been looking for – that he  _really _ should have stayed with his fleeting worry of Ed being even more reckless in a body that couldn’t feel – a week later, when they were holed up in the Elrics’ dormroom. They’d taken all of Kalk’s research there, because in the office was too easily compromised and they didn’t even trust storage or libraries since Hughes’ death. At first, they tried to each grab some notes and to take with them to their separate houses, but that method didn’t work because of how much cross-referencing Kalk forced them to do. He’d been a paranoid man, writing findings in different notebooks in a sequence only he seemed to understand. So the team gave up and all came to use the tiny little sitting room area in the boys’ dorms whenever they could, making up excuses to be there that generally fed into the same story of Ed still recovering after his stint with Scar. 

The small table in the Elrics’ dormroom had a very odd stain on it that looked, Roy was sure after staring at it for a good fifteen minutes, a bit like a lady in a slinky dress. He couldn’t tell if she was a pretty lady or not. The day had been incredibly long, and it was late, and he was vaguely aware that he was falling asleep where he slumped. 

“Oh, go to bed,” Ed snapped, suddenly. “I really don’t want to have to listen to you snoring for the next five hours.” 

Roy straightened up slowly, stretching sore muscles and rubbing at his tired, aching eyes. His irritated snarl that he  _did not snore _ came out muted and sounding as tired as he felt. He glanced at Hawkeye, who had her attention focused on two open journals, and he ordered, firmly but softly, that she leave, too. She obeyed without complaint, as usual, but Roy caught her reading to the end of the page as she gathered her things. His gaze then turned to the suit of armour seated in the same corner it had been when they’d arrived in the late afternoon. It wasn’t strange to see the armour not sitting still, per se, but it  _was _ strange when Roy reminded himself that it was rumbustious, hyperactive Fullmetal  _inside _ that armour. With that perspective in his head, it felt... wrong to just leave him there. To come back in the morning to find him in the same position, with just a few more pages turned to give evidence that he’d moved at all. Didn’t Alphonse meditate or something; Roy vaguely recalled some talk of it, once. It had been a week since Edward had inherited a body that didn’t sleep, and although Roy understood the boy’s focus and drive and determination, especially in this instance, the niggling worry of the mental repercussions of not sleeping for a week niggled hard and fast in his tired brain. Roy glanced to see how many pages Ed had left of the book he’d been reading all afternoon, working up an order for the boy to put it down and try that meditation thing, and then realised it was a book on something completely otherwise to soul transmutation. The unease grew; Edward didn’t take breaks from things he thought were important. Especially not for whole afternoons. He knew firsthand how Ed got sucked into reading, but this was just  _off_ . 

“Why don’t you cross reference the work Kalk did in Drachma? It will help Hawkeye with what she’s doing,” Roy found himself blurting. Hawkeye gave him a look but didn’t say anything, trusting that he was lying for a reason. Ed distractedly grunted. “By tomorrow, Fullmetal. We’re all pulling our weight here to find the answer.” 

For a long moment, there wasn’t a reaction. Roy was just about to prod him again – to get him to put down the book first, and then to demand he do some kind of sleep – when Ed spoke slowly, soulfire eyes still trained on the page in front of his face. “What if we don’t? Find the answer.”

It was not Roy’s area to be comforting, just like it wasn’t Ed’s area to  _request _ comfort. He looked, floundering, in Hawkeye’s direction. She was looking at Ed, but must have seen Roy’s desperation out of the corner of her eye, because she said, quiet and gentle but firm as steel, “There  _must _ be an answer in these notes somewhere, Ed. He used them to do this to you boys. We’ll find it, and undo it. We  _will_ .” 

“No, I mean...” Ed hesitated, still staring at the book for a while. Then he slowly lowered it, and turned that emotionless gaze to Roy. “The information could help the military, I understand. But... non-military never need to know we found it.” 

“Non-military like your brother?” Hawkeye understood what Ed was getting at much faster than he had. 

“And just not return your souls to their rightful bodies?” Roy pressed, surprised when he shouldn’t have been. 

“This _isn’t_ his rightful body!” Ed exploded at once, fury tight and, to Roy’s expertise, very clearly hiding hurting desperation. “So what if his soul is in my body or this armour? It doesn’t _matter, _in that regard. So let’s just... leave it. Until we find a way to get Al’s _real _body back.” 

“And how does Al feel about being shoved into your body for the foreseeable future?” Roy asked, dryly. No answer – he’d expected as much. “Should we ask him?”

“Don’t you _dare_. Don’t you_ dare _wake him up.” Edward clambered quickly to his feet, armour clanking like the warning rattle of a rattlesnake. He towered over Roy purposefully, all hulking steel and intimidating rage. “He hasn’t slept in _years_, Mustang.” Not ‘Bastard’, but his real name. “I used to think I could imagine what that felt like, but now I _know_. After a _week _I’m already... I can’t remember what... And you want me to put my_ little brother_ back here now that I _know_ for sure what it feels like?” 

If Roy hadn’t spent three years learning to read Al’s emotions through the armour or how to look behind the façade of Ed’s anger, he would have missed the pleading that rang like a harmony under Ed’s words. They’d been too busy dealing with work and research and Al’s wonder at being able to taste and feel and sleep again that they’d missed the brewing storm being contained quietly in the belly of the armour. But it was beginning to break around them, and it would not be a pretty or painless experience when it did. For that moment, however, Roy didn’t know what to say in response to Ed’s question, and they stood in silence for a long moment until Hawkeye drew herself up, firmly said that they’d see Ed the next day to continue the research. 

Ed didn’t say anything; simply ducked his head away and folded himself back down into a pile of armour in the corner. Too big. Too still. Too emotionless.

*** 

Roy and Riza doubled their research efforts over the next two days, wordlessly agreeing to keep a closer eye on Ed. The elder Elric showed nothing to suggest the crack they’d seen that night, and Roy started to wonder if they’d simply caught Ed at a low moment; that he’d since thought things through and had thrown himself back into the research when he came to the conclusion that they had to swap their bodies back. And then he found himself at a table with Al and Hawkeye, unable to concentrate fully because the younger Elric kept sitting up and craning himself around to look at the clock mounted on the wall.

“Alphonse?” It was half question and half warning. 

“Brother should be back by now,” Al said, making an odd picture of Ed’s face as he chewed on his lip. It was more sanitary than chewing on knuckles, Roy supposed, but it was just one more thing that was _off_. 

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Al’s silent, heavy hesitation was very telling. “You know exactly how strong the armour is, he’s still got excellent alchemy skills and is still stubborn and tenacious. And he’s just gone to get _groceries_, Al.” 

“He’s been doing this more often,” Al blurted, eyes flickering back and forth between Roy and Hawkeye. “Finding excuses not to research. Like... like he’s given up. Or, no. Actually. Like he’s stopped really _caring _about undoing this, even though it’s possible.” 

Hawkeye and Roy shared a glance. “You think he... doesn’t mind the current situation enough to let it be?” Riza asked, carefully. 

“I think... I think Brother’s guilt is too big to even fit in that armour, and he wants to keep me...” Al trailed off, staring at the flesh hand as it moved over the wood grain, feeling every bump and rough edge. 

“Your situation is... unique. Not only have souls never been _swapped _before, but... Your soul wasn’t in your body to begin with. So far, there haven’t been any side-effects,” Roy offered, keeping his voice dispassionate. 

“I know of a side-effect,” Al said at once, glancing back up. “I’m worried he’ll... give up on restoring me. That he’ll just think this is just penance; the way it should have been. I’m not in _my _body, but this is good enough. Especially since the Stone, our only hope for so long, turned out to be... _monstrous_.” He was quiet for a moment. “I know what it’s like in there, Colonel.” The emotion chilled Roy a little. “And it was necessary at the time for Brother to put me in there. But it’s...” He swallowed. “I also know my brother. Very, very well. And even _if _Barry was wrong, and these bodies don’t reject the souls that don’t belong to them eventually, I _can’t _let him choose to stay in there. He’ll think... he _thinks _all of what living in that body means is _deserved _punishment for him. And he’d very quickly bear it for the rest of his _life_ if it meant I didn’t have to.” He slowly looked from Roy to Riza. “I’m right, aren’t I?” he realised in horror. 

An uncomfortable  _swoop _ happened in Roy’s gut when he realised that there were actual tears pooling; that the crack in Al’s voice would make Fullmetal’s face awash with misery and sadness to the point where Roy would have to watch Edward’s face cry. Al wiped at the tears with a look of startled wonder on his face once the first began to fall, suitably distracted for the moment. He hadn’t cried in three years. Hadn’t had the choice to. And the price of his emotion was taking away his brother’s ability to express himself. Al turned his face away slightly and shut his eyes, still not used to the fact that that there were emotions clearly twisting about on his face. Still not used to the fact that this body usually ducked behind a curtain of bangs to conceal itself. And then he took a deep breath and mumbled something about getting tea into the loaded silence. 

But when he stood he instantly swayed and buckled with a soft, confused noise, metal arm clanging hard against the table as he went down. Hawkeye and Roy leapt for him, too late to do anything except check he hadn’t injured himself when he’d fallen. 

“I’m okay,” Al said, sounding surprised and dazed. “I just... everything... rushed... for a second...” 

Hawkeye asked for more symptoms, and then quietly put forward the diagnosis of a blood pressure drop. 

“Did you remember to eat?” Roy asked, trying to be gentle. Al’s enthusiasm for food had calmed down a little as the days wore on. Worry for his brother, and not being routinely fed for years, could have meant he’d been unintentionally skipping meals. Fullmetal’s face _did _look gaunter than he thought he remembered, now that he was looking. 

“Yes...” 

“Enough?” Hawkeye promted. 

“I... think... This body is always hungry, but I thought it was me forgetting about eating and hunger, and because Brother ate a lot more than people say he’s supposed to...” 

“Ed didn’t gain weight, so he must need all of what he eats,” Hawkeye said, sternly. “Go back to the portions you remember him eating. Maybe a little less because of the lack of field missions. But listen to what this body is telling you, Alphonse, not whatever snide remarks other people are making.”

She didn’t look at Roy once, but he still felt suitably chastised. Al, too, blushed a little, as he murmured his promise to adhere to her advice in the future. Hawkeye got Al some leftovers from the night before while Roy hauled Al back into his seat, and the younger Elric dutifully ate most of the bowl until he hesitantly declared that he thought he was full. Despite having watched him eat, Roy didn’t realise he was only using the flesh arm to eat until he held Kak’s notebook up one-handed, too, and he kept staring until he caught Al wincing as he absent-mindedly reached with it to turn the pages. 

“Yo, Al, I’m back,” Ed’s voice boomed out, and Al wasn’t able to hide the flicker of relief on his face. 

“Brother! How long does it take to get eggs and a few vegetables? What did you _do_?” Al demanded, eyes narrowing. 

“I destroyed a couple of houses and then kicked some kittens,” Ed groused back, and Al rolled his eyes with a sigh. “_Jeez_. It’s nice to know you have such a high regard for my actions.” 

Al rose to help Ed put the groceries away in their tiny kitchen, and, because Roy was watching, he noticed Ed notice when Al winced using the shoulder. It didn’t take much demanding for Al to sheepishly admit that he’d banged the arm pretty hard, but after a short tirade, Ed calmed down enough to say that it was probably just a loose wire, knowing the arm. 

“And,” he said, voice very guilty, “I haven’t exactly done maintenance on them for... Well. Since Winry was here.” 

“I was wondering why the knee felt stiffer than you’ve ever said it was,” Al said, shooting an exasperated look his brother’s way. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. It’s not like we’ve been doing much since Winry last tuned them up.” Ed waved a giant hand carelessly. “But... let’s take them both off, just to oil them and stuff. Before Winry kills both of us.” 

Al moved to the couch and Ed produced, from the pouch around the armour’s waist, a wicked looking wrench. The armour clanged and groaned as Ed lowered himself before his brother and began reaching with the wrench and very large fingers, for the automail shoulder port. 

“Shouldn’t a mechanic be doing this?” Roy said, and he’d never admit under pain of death how _nervous _the sight of hulking armour fiddling with delicate automail made him in that moment. 

“Nah. Basic maintenance I can do myself; I just use alchemy to pop it all where it should be and then oil it up. Just don’t wanna do it when it’s _on _another person. Bastard,” he added on the end, as an afterthought. The calm confidence of his words were belied a moment later when Al let out a startled yelp just before Ed lifted the arm free. “Sorry,” Ed said, hurriedly. “I forgot you’re still getting used to dealing with what pain feels like...” He stared at the arm cradled in the armour’s hands. “Maybe we can just leave the leg on...” 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Al said. “I just... it caught be by surprise, that’s all. Maintenance has to be done, Brother. On _both _of us, actually; I’ve just realised we haven’t polished my – uh... _the _armour in a while, either. Get me done, and then we’ll do you.” 

Ed hesitated another moment, and then set aside the arm and moved toward the automail leg. This time, Al remained silent, but it was obvious it wasn’t entirely pleasant. And then Ed got stuck into poking around in the automail, muttering to himself. At one point, he called Hawkeye over for the use of her smaller hands, and he missed entirely the look of surprise and near-honour that flittered over her face for a moment. Usually, Ed went to great lengths to hide the automail. Yet, there he was, asking for  _help _ with it. Exposing it to both of them without much thought. It appeared that he cared less about being stared at when it didn’t feel like it was him being stared at. 

Al, on the other hand, looked a little lost. And suddenly very, very small. He kept running his hand over the ports and shifting around experimentally, face turning a pinched sort of unreadable every time he listed too far to one side. Roy had seen Fullmetal without an arm before, but never without both limbs since that day in Resembool. The sight of him sitting meek and quiet on the couch, unable to go anywhere or do much for himself was unsettling; a hard, bitter knot in Roy’s stomach. 

“Oh, you might want to eat a banana or something now,” Ed threw over the armour’s shoulder as he began to oil the automail with slightly clumsy movements. “A full stomach for redocking is never a good idea, but the attachment takes up a larger surge of energy, too, and being lightheaded sucks.” 

“What?” Roy said before he could stop himself, entire mind focusing on the new information with mounting, uncomfortable realisation. “What do you mean, a surge of energy?”

“It’s biological, genius,” Ed said, the eyeroll implied. “No external power source, so it uses you.” 

And that alone put into perspective some of what had  _caused _ Al to collapse and damage the shoulder in the first place. Roy felt as stupid as Ed’s tone implied he was for not  _thinking _ about something like that before; for not wondering how the automail worked, when one of his team had  _two _ limbs replaced with the stuff. Another mistake when it came to the Elrics; another oversight that may have cost much more than Roy was willing to pay. Al had also gone very, very still on the couch, eyes wide and mind clearly racing. Roy bet that he was putting pieces together in ways he’d never had to, before, and it didn’t look like the final picture was much better than the one in Roy’s head. 

“All done!” Ed pronounced. 

But as he turned around with the limbs in his arms he suddenly faltered and then came to a complete standstill, and only hears with Ed’s nature informed Roy that some implication Ed had ignored had just become apparent to him. It was odd to watch Ed recalibrating something when his face was so utterly blank, but the deep, furious thinking didn’t last too long. 

“Maybe we should wait to redock for a little while...” Ed said, hesitance in his voice. “Until... But, no,” he muttered, tone frustrated. “I’ll need one of them so it can be simultaneously docked or...” 

“Brother?” Al asked, curious and gentle. 

Ed dithered for another few moments, and Al patiently waited for him to sort through his own reaction. “Al... You really  _are _ still getting used to how to handle pain again. And redocking... You  _know _ it’s... not the greatest feeling...I don’t... I shouldn’t have taken them off,” he said, voice turning decisive and frustrated. 

“I’m not going to get used to pain if I don’t ever experience any, Brother,” Al said, voice amused. 

“Al...” 

“It’s _fine_, Ed. You have to... you can’t sleep. Or eat. Or feel. And I have to put on the automail. We’re carrying each other’s burdens, for a while,” Al said with a sweet, open smile. 

Still, Ed hesitated another beat. “I suppose.” He glanced at Riza. “Lieutenant? Could you please help me? I need somebody else to connect the leg nerves at the same time as I do the shoulder. It means only one jolt, instead of two.” 

“Of course. Just show me what to do,” Hawkeye said, stepping forward. 

Which left Roy feeling out of place, awkward, and strangely anxious. He’d heard that automail surgery wasn’t pleasant, but this was the first time he was hearing about redocking being the same. Yet another thing Ed had kept from him. Or... yet another thing he hadn’t thought to ask. Al turned so he was lying across the couch, legs propped up, and Ed positioned the automail leg, explaining quickly to Hawkeye what she had to do. 

“Could you... uh... One of you needs to reach around the port and make sure that it’s all lining up properly. If not, when you connect it, the nerves and steel connections won’t be perfectly aligned and...” 

He left it at that, ominously, and Riza and Al looked at each other, both as clueless as the other about what they were feeling for. Ed explained a little more clearly, and Al felt around, doubtfully saying he thought it was all in place. He had to repeat the process with the shoulder, and then Riza hunkered down by the leg while Ed stood above the arm. 

“On three. As in – one, two, and then twist.” Hawkeye nodded once. “Okay. One. Two. Three.” 

Nobody was prepared for Al’s reaction. 

The shriek was almost inhumane, dragged from somewhere deep, more surprised than pained. But the second keening moan was pure agony, and the body on the couch  _writhed _ in it. Roy could have sworn he’d seen sparks for a moment. 

“Alphonse!” 

“Al!” Ed loomed over his little brother, panic evident in every bit of the emotionless steel. “Al, what’s wrong? Did we do it wrong?” 

Al whimpered and moaned and tried, instinctively, to curl up into a ball. But, at the first movement of the limbs, he writhed again. “Hurts,” he moaned, voice breathless. “ _Hurts_ .” 

“Did we not align it correctly?” Hawkeye demanded, hands settling over Alphonse’s form in an effort to give comfort. 

“I... I dunno,” Ed said, tone still panicked. “I think... But I don’t _know_.” 

Al let out another moan-whimper, flesh hand groping at the port. Ed grabbed at it with his large gauntlet and then held on, letting Al squeeze in a grip that would have hurt anybody else. 

“What can we do?” Roy broke in, and Ed turned to him vaguely. 

“I... hot water bottles. In the bedroom cabinet. And... tea. Bright blue box in the kitchen. They should help.” 

It took a while for Al to come back to himself a little more. In that time, Roy and Hawkeye both busied themselves preparing tea and hot water bottles and then, when a slight fever started, a cool compress rag. As soon as Al was able to concentrate, Ed led him through a list of diagnostics and found that the nerves were all aligned correctly; it was just the usual pain of redocking that Al hadn’t been prepared for. 

Ed sounded only relieved that they hadn’t done anything wrong, at first, sounding almost dismissive as he explained the fever was also normal, and would pass in an hour or two at most. He missed the looks Hawkeye and Roy were giving him; missed how much the implications were settling home. He didn’t however, miss when Al started to cry.  _That _ crashed the guilt on, hard and fast, and he hovered frantically, regretfully, at first, before disappearing to go and hide himself in his shame in the kitchen under some muttered half-excuse. 

Roy made himself sit at the table and watch; made himself take in the sight of Edward Elric’s body folded in pain and fever and tears and shivers. And he made himself think of all the times Ed had gone through that before, adding it together with the other surprising costs of automail that he’d never bothered to think about before this. 

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of this.” Al suddenly said, as though reading Roy’s thoughts, his voice cracked with his tears and the pain he was still in. “I thought... I thought I had it worse.” 

There was enough shame in that whispered admission to fund the military for a year, but Roy couldn’t yet help Al to deal with it. Because Roy had assumed the same thing Al had, but telling the younger boy – and, hell, did he suddenly  _look _ so young on that couch. Edward had been  _eleven. _ Roy could remember how small and dead he’d looked, hanging like a doll from his fisted grip on his shirt – that he was culpable for the same sin wouldn’t help Al in that moment. They just... had to find a way to deal with it. And be  _better _ with it. 

Ed finally emerged from the room with Hawkeye, who had gone to coax him out. Without a word, he picked up the discarded hot water bottles – kept in the bedroom cabinet. For easy access. Damnit, Fullmetal.  _Damnit_ . – and went to the kitchen to refill it. He was careless with the boiled water, letting it slop all over his hands. Because it didn’t hurt. Because it couldn’t burn him. Something lodged in Roy’s throat, but he didn’t know what to say to explain why he  _needed _ Ed to  _stop_ . 

“Let me, please,” Riza said, quietly, her step and grip purposeful and unyielding. 

Ed caved to her order as easily as he ever had, stepping aside to let her carefully fill the bottles, staring at her work so he didn’t have to look anybody in the eye. Once they were full, he wrapped them in towels and took them, silently, back to his brother. Gently, sorrowfully, he tucked the bottles against the automail ports, careful to let Al continue dozing. And Roy was struck by how the splotches of drying hot water on the leather gauntlets didn’t look dissimilar to the drying tear tracks on Al’s cheeks. Ed’s cheeks, technically. Both of them. The burden was so heavy for  _both _ of them. 


End file.
